Bill would establish more oversight for school discipline

For six years a massive study on school discipline followed every Texas student who started seventh grade in 2000 through 2002 and bill that passed the Senate Tuesday was written to address its key findings.

Of those nearly 1 million Texas students, almost 60 percent had been suspended or expelled, according to an analysis released in 2011 by the Council of State Governments Justice Center in partnership with the Public Policy Research Institute of Texas A&M University.

More than one-in-seven students had been suspended or expelled at least 11 times, the study found. Only 3 percent of the disciplinary decisions were for conduct which state law mandates suspensions or expulsions. The study found African-American students, as well as those with some disabilities, were disproportionately disciplined on the behavior left to the discretion of school leaders.

Senate Bill 1115, authored by Sen. John Whitmire, D- Houston, would expand the Texas Education Agency’s monitoring of disciplinary actions from reports on students moved to alternative programs to include all discipline that removes students from the classroom and adds ethnicity to the characteristics required to be reported. It also outlines how the commissioner of education could intervene when a school is identified as disproportionately disciplining a group of students or regularly removes students from the classroom for an excessive number of days.

The bill passed the Senate and now moves to the House for consideration.